face with the blankets.
To induce her to look up he pretended to be going away, and when this failed
he sat on the end of the bed and tapped her gently with his foot. “Wendy,” he
said, “don't withdraw. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm pleased with
myself.” Still she would not look up, though she was listening eagerly.
“Wendy,” he continued, in a voice that no woman has ever yet been able to
resist, “Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys.”
Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very many
inches, and she peeped out of the bed-clothes.
“Do you really think so, Peter?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I think it's perfectly sweet of you,” she declared, “and I'll get up again,” and
she sat with him on the side of the bed. She also said she would give him a kiss
if he liked, but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his hand
expectantly.
“Surely you know what a kiss is?” she asked, aghast.
“I shall know when you give it to me,” he replied stiffly, and not to hurt his
feeling she gave him a thimble.
“Now,” said he, “shall I give you a kiss?” and she replied with a slight
primness, “If you please.” She made herself rather cheap by inclining her face
toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her hand, so she slowly
returned her face to where it had been before, and said nicely that she would
wear his kiss on the chain around her neck. It was lucky that she did put it on
that chain, for it was afterwards to save her life.
When people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to ask each
other's age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct thing, asked Peter
how old he was. It was not really a happy question to ask him; it was like an
examination paper that asks grammar, when what you want to be asked is Kings
of England.
“I don't know,” he replied uneasily, “but I am quite young.” He really knew
nothing about it, he had merely suspicions, but he said at a venture, “Wendy, I
ran away the day I was born.”
Wendy was quite surprised, but interested; and she indicated in the charming
drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he could sit nearer
her.
“It was because I heard father and mother,” he explained in a low voice,
perpustakaan sri jauhari
(Perpustakaan Sri Jauhari)
#1